Blog Link Building 101 – Part I: Directories
I have talked about in the past about the importance of paying attention to search engine optimization if you intend to get more traffic to your blog on a daily basis. Google, Yahoo!, and Bing all are capable of driving lots of targeted traffic to your blog, but you will have to work for it if you intend to get tangible results from your search engine optimization efforts. One of the main strategies to climb up the search engine rankings is acquiring incoming links from other websites with your preferred anchor text (that is if you plan to rank for that piece of text). You can always ask other blogs to link to you. You can also participate in forums and get links through your signature. But one of the oldest strategies that still works is acquiring links from directories. It’s true that search engines are not paying as much attention as they used to as far as directories are concerned, but getting links from targeted directories can provide you with a decent push. Don’t forget that directories that have a decent amount of page views can drive you traffic by themselves, so going after directories is still worth the effort.
A lot of old school SEOs prefer going after directories manually. They pick and choose 20 or so directories, conduct deep analysis on each, and submit sites to them. But if you are not into signing up for these directories yourself and submit your listings by hand, you can always outsource the process. Services such as Directory Maximizer allow you to submit your blog to hundreds of directories over the period that you define. So you won’t get flagged for adding too many incoming links to your blog in a short period of time. You’ll be in control of your anchor text as well, so it’s a win win.
What I like about Directory Maximizer is that it allows you to customize your directory submission campaign and choose directories that have a specific PR. You can also choose the speed of submission which is a big plus as you don’t want to get flagged by search engines for submitting to too many directories. You can also define multiple titles for your listing and have the software switch among these titles on different directories. So let’s say if you have 10 titles and you submit to 100 directories, you will get 10 links per each anchor text from these directories.
Overall, Directory Maximizer is a tool that simplifies your life and lets you focus on more important things. You can also do all your submissions by hand, but that wouldn’t be the best way to spend your time as a blogger. Directories do matter and can provide you with a push if you approach them the right way. But there are plenty of other ways to build links to your blog, which is why you should stay tuned for the second part of this series.
